When Kung Fu Panda clawed its way to box office glory in 2008, it sent shock waves through China. Nationalists were bitter that a smash hit banking on Chinese culture was made by Americans, and calls for a government ban ensued.
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However, the success of DreamWorks’ film in China also lit a fire under China’s film industry.
Sure, there were missteps, including a 2011 knock-off film called Legend that failed to win over audiences like the rotund and punchy panda named Po. But the years of intense effort and industrialisation that followed have not only paid off, they have given China bragging rights to the world’s highest-grossing animated film of all time: Ne Zha 2.
On Monday, ticket sales for the groundbreaking sequel surpassed US$2 billion. And by Friday, after 38 days in theatres, the total had inched up to US$2.015 billion, according to ticketing platform Maoyan. The multibillion-dollar global haul is a first for a non-Hollywood film of any type, and it showed how Western dominance in China’s market is not what it used to be.
However, some industry insiders and analysts caution that, despite Ne Zha 2’s astounding success, it may be premature to herald a dramatic shift to a future where domestic studios continuously crank out this level of box office gold.
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“This is an achievement of the whole Chinese animation industry,” Wang Changtian, chairman of Beijing Enlight Media, a co-investor of Ne Zha, said on social media after the sequel overtook the previous box office record-holder, Pixar’s Inside Out 2, to claim the animation crown.